"Darlington Nurses" vs County Durham and Darlington NHS Trust Tribunal Thread 3

[AuthorisedCat]

Link to Thread 1, 7-Oct to 23-Oct; pre-hearing discussion, evidence from KD (Day 1) and BH (Day 2).

Link to Thread 2
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5432103-darlington-nurses-vs-county-durham-and-darlington-nhs-trust-tribunal-thread-2

Five nurses working at Darlington Memorial Hospital have filed a legal case suing their employer, an NHS trust, for sexual harassment and sex discrimination. The nurses object to sharing the women’s changing facilities with a male colleague, Rose, who identifies as female. The NHS trust’s HR department dismissed the nurses’ concerns, stating they should “broaden their mindset” and “be educated”. More details can be found at Sex Matters and at Christian Concern who are supporting the nurses via the CLC.
The hearing started on October 20th, with evidence starting on October 22nd and is scheduled to last 3 weeks. To view the hearing online, requests for access had to be made by October 17th. The hearing is being live tweeted by Tribunal Tweets who have background to this case on their substack. An alternative to X is to use Nitter: nitter.net/tribunaltweets or nitter.poast.org/tribunaltweets
The Judge made clear at the start of the public hearing on Day 1 that only TT or press have permission to tweet. If online observers see/hear something in the court that isn’t reported by TT, we don’t mention it until the next time there’s a break. This is a very cautious approach to avoid any accusations of “live reporting” on MN. Commentary on the content of TT tweets is fine as soon as they’re posted on X.
Key people:
C/Ns - Claimants, the Darlington nurses
R/T/Trust - Respondent, County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust
J/EJ – Judge/Employment Judge
NF - Niazi Fetto KC, barrister for claimants
SC - Simon Cheetham, KC, barrister for respondents
RH - Rose Henderson, trans identifying nurse
CG – Clare Gregory, ward manager
KD – Karen Danson, first claimant to give evidence.
BH – Bethany Hutchison, second claimant to give evidence
AH – Alistair Hutchison, husband of Bethany
Other abbreviations:
WFTCHTJ – Waiting For The Conference Host To Join
ET - Employment Tribunal
DMH/H – Hospital, Darlington Memorial Hospital
CR/CF - changing room or facilities
IX - internal investigation
XX – cross examination

I think I want a sweatshirt printed with "Don't ask me anything. I'm not across the details." on it. Anyone else?

I'm going to make a mug tomorrow with this on. I fucking love it.

Absolutely.

😂

@AuthorisedCat Thank you so much for posting TT. You did an excellent job.

👏👏👏💐💐💐

Seconded!!

Thirded @AuthorisedCat

What gets me in both this and the NHS Fife tribunals is how blindsided these people in charge are by women complaining about being forced to change with men.

I genuinely thought that people would get it and have some empathy, but were given legal and HR advice that the law allowed men claiming a trans identity to use female spaces, so their hands were tied. It has been a real shock to me how captured most of them are.

I laughed out loud at this, thank you!

Unless it directly affected them @GargoylesofBeelzebub and then they’d get it.

I think we’re getting into the swing of things now.

• Honest and clear witnesses on the claimants side
• Hear no evil, see no evil but did lots of evil HR goon
• Board members saying get your act together
• Sensible colleagues saying it’s not appropriate, in line with H&S or fire safe
• Very manly man in boxers in the changing room

I’d love a read at all the witness statements.

Definitely good to hear that there were wise words of caution in amongst the nonsense.

Like hearing there were a couple of very sensible comments from HR members at Fife too.

There are people (I assume women) out there who can feel a tiny bit "I did try to say..."

Delurking to give massive thanks to you all. I'm sure there are many of us following and nodding along to the excellent commentary and insights.

Have the NHS audit numbers now so I thought I’d update:

59% of trusts did not carry out an EqIA for any trans staff policy.

Of the 41% that did carry out an EqIA, none were considered adequate by the auditors.

Hope that little nugget gets into the Telegraph or similar.

@KnottyAuty is working on it! Keep your fingers crossed.

In slight disagreement with earlier posters, I think NF is doing a fantastic job. He kept his powder dry during SC questions of nurses because, in my view, SC was attempting to paint them as bitter. Bitchy and gossipy troublemakers (ie bigots who don’t merit the time of day) but what NF did today is firmly establish that that line of argument is wholly irrelevant and to do that he steered clear of rehearsing arguments about ideological capture and TWAW belief (which was at the heart of NHS Fife E) and focussed entirely on incompetence. And from
ATs evidence he headed up an entire smorgasbord of stupidity. It’s a brilliant legal strategy I think because it works so strongly within the wheelhouse of the ET panel: did that incompetence result in discrimination and harassment. So far I think the answer is undoubtedly yes. The best boom from NF was in making the very clear point that AT and minions favoured one male over all
all females. Spectacular. And NF doesn’t have tl argue the point about whether TWAW because that has been clarified by FWS SC clarification.

Ah thanks, just doing my very small bit.

Anyone else want to do tomorrow? I'm not usually logged on for the very start due to other commitments. In addition, I can only do until 3pm. But happy to fill in when I can if there's no one else.

The lovely thing about Equality Impact Assessements - even the really shit ones - is that they hang aound forever and can be dug out by an FoI to embarrass the fuck out of the organisations who drew them up.

The Scottish Prison Service did an EqIA on its trans prisoner policy - the one that eventually gave us Isla Bryson - that was started in 2007 and finished in 2014. Murray Blackburn Mackenzie FoI'd it and went through what it contains and what it doesn't. Highlights include the list of who they consulted - no women's groups, nor women prisoners, though they did consult "trans people in prison and in the community".

Another highlight is a ticklist of equality groups which they say will be affected. "Age" is ticked. So is "Gender identity (e.g. people who will chamge/have chnaged/are changing their gender from that assigned at birth)" and "Sexual orientation". "Gender (e.g. women or men)" is not ticked. Neither is "Religion or Belief".

So that's all right then!

https://murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2023/01/29/the-sps-equality-impact-assessment-on-its-trans-prisoner-policy/

I remember when the Welsh Government 'lost' one - which must have been bad!

The (as yet unknown) journalist who asked for the witness statements asked for the comedy gold provided by the HR director; the nurse who had the 1st-hand info about Rose not behaving as or considering himself¹ to be a woman; and one other that TT didn't catch.

Did any of our observers manage to hear that third name?

¹ If you're married to a woman and aren't a lesbian then you're a ... ?

Where's the 😂reaction when I need it?

Quite. It's like they just can't imagine why there would be any real objections; the only potential reason they see for objections is that the women are transphobic bigots and trouble-makers.

I am of the view that NF (with a few side slaps from the judge) laid AT testimony to waste. It was clear that he lied about what he did and did not know, and avoided directing the below staff either way, and was all along ducking and diving to avoid problems for himself.

He is a good example of a yes man, a yellow belied custard who has no principles or morals, or the ability to express a particular opinion in his professional life.

As he has chucked his lower’s under the bus i suspect that the next witnesses are in for a shock.

The judge has got the measure of AT.